Once more the two heads came up to the air, and one small hand, extended in a wild grasp toward the bank, caught an overhanging bough and clung there desperately.
[to be continued.]
[BICYCLING FOR GIRLS.]
Some weeks ago we published an article on bicycle-riding, and at that time promised to say something regarding bicycling for girls, which is so different a question from bicycling for boys that it requires a separate article.
There has been a discussion going on for some time as to whether it was a healthy exercise for girls and young women to take up, and many doctors have given it as their opinion that it was not, on the whole, advisable. But the practice has become general now, and it is likely that many more girls will ride this fall and next year than ever before. Consequently it is useless to advise people not to ride. If any girl finds that riding is making her feel enervated and tired all the time, or if in any other way she notices any kind of unpleasant results from her riding, common-sense and her doctor will tell her to stop; but there is no reason why a healthy girl, if she begins gradually, should not learn to ride, and ride well, to the great benefit of her health and happiness.
It is only required that she shall observe two or three simple rules—rules which every athlete who trains theoretically obeys. For instance, she should remember that, as is the case with most girls in cities, and often in the country as well, she has not been accustomed to severe physical exercise, that she would not start out at once to run five miles without stopping, and in like manner she should not ride ten miles on a wheel neither the first time nor the thirtieth time. This seems very simple to read in type, but the fact is that most girls want to ride fifteen miles as soon as they can get along on a road by themselves.
The difficult thing is to stop just before you begin to feel the slightest sensation of weariness. In these fall days any one can ride along through the country, and while moving feel invigorated by the force of the breeze which the movement of the wheel creates. But when she does stop, the girl suddenly feels "worn out," perhaps a little dizzy, or at least tired, and rather inclined to get into a car and ride home, while some one else pushes her wheel along for her. Any girl of spirit in such a situation immediately makes up her mind that she will not give in to this feeling of weariness, and that she will ride home whether she feels tired or not. The result is a bad headache, a doctor, and perhaps an injunction from her parents not to ride a bicycle again.
